


Act 1 [or What if George of Clarence survived the Tower AU]

by Lady_Plantagenet



Series: These Giddy Hatchings [1]
Category: 15th Century CE RPF, Richard III - Shakespeare, The Sunne in Splendour - Sharon Kay Penman, The White Queen (TV)
Genre: (although the focus shifts), (and cross-references), (as a health warning), Alternate Universe - Historical, Clarence portrayed as an actual human being, Combination of Shakespeare and Historical Canon, F/M, Fervent Richardians Stay Away, Gen, Gisabel, Historical References, Isabel Neville portrayed as more than a dimwit and scared pawn, Overpompous Nobleman Speak, POV Third Person Omniscient, Somebody Lives/Not Everyone Dies, Unironically Purple Prose, Wild AU, historical details, prose
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-02
Updated: 2021-01-02
Packaged: 2021-03-12 10:00:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,651
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28508604
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lady_Plantagenet/pseuds/Lady_Plantagenet
Summary: [ENTER: A pestering wife who refuses to be a young widow, a felonious brother with more hidden motives than an onion has layers and a scheming Duke of Clarence, but imprisoned for all the wrong reasons]Press on ‘These Giddy Hatchings’ to get the full blurb and notes.
Relationships: Edward IV of England & George Plantagenet Duke of Clarence & Richard III of England, George Plantagenet Duke of Clarence & Richard III, Isabel Neville & Richard III of England, Isabel Neville/George Plantagenet Duke of Clarence
Series: These Giddy Hatchings [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2088273
Comments: 7
Kudos: 4
Collections: Histories Ficathon XI





	Act 1 [or What if George of Clarence survived the Tower AU]

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TheGoldenGhost](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheGoldenGhost/gifts).



> “The Foule is fowle, men say, that flies the nest:  
> Which makes me loth to speke now, might I chuse,  
> But seyng time vnberdened hath her brest,  
> And fame blowne vp the blast of all abuse,  
> My silence rather might my life accuse  
> Than shroude our shame, though faune I would it so,  
> For truth will out, although the world say no”
> 
> \- ‘How George Plantagenet, Third Sonne of the Duke of Yorke, was by his brother King Edward wrongfully imprisoned, and by his brother Richard miserably murdered the 11 Jan 1478’ FROM Mirror of Magistrates: Legends from the Conquest, 1559

[SCENE 1]:

Poets spoke of how winds and humours of nature - though different in how they chilled, would whist on that same day each year: the morn of St Valentine’s martyrdom, the procurer of the forbidden marriage. Where the seafarer, a pilgrim on the winter waves greeted its companion, weather-worn and far travelled, the haughtier tercels paid court to their formels with all the pomp befitting to the parliament of fowls.

Isabel Neville rode forward from the Eastcheap. The Tower was all but blanketed in fog, save for the Beauchamp Tower that stood a hoary pin. From her husband’s palfrey, she saw no promise of love or birth amidst those tendrils of frigid air kicked up with each lift of the beast’s dark hoof. When the gait dropped, she found her grimace had frozen to her face.

‘My lady, is it in the Duke of Gloucester’s apartments that you shall have your audience?’ her page’s voice dribbled behind her, fast and nasally, ending by a rap on the wrist. His sister, was then heard from behind, chiding him for his nosiness. A fine girl, Isabel thought to herself, straight of back and in manners like I was. She reminded herself how once her and her husband’s estates would be back in their hands, she would make of her a lady-in-waiting. Loyalty had to be repaid somehow and she would not grow used to rewarding it with coin

‘No’ she shivered shrugging her black mantle back over her chest ‘today it shall be the Bowyer Tower’. She told the boy how it was one of the stouter turrets - oblivious to anyone save for those, who at the fortress, had attended court. This much passed her lips while she thought on her Duke, languishing in the first of the points engulfed by this nihility. The point where the window of his chambers peaked between the parapets of the towers had etched itself into her memory: Wakefield and White. She liked to think he was there returning her gaze through furrowed brows and lips tightening into a beam the nearer she approached, looking up in between flashes of clarity. But he could not see her any better than she did him, nor would it be made known to him how this was to be the third time she would try to plead for him that week. Withall, each time she would close the space, the harder the backwind would strike from the moat with her not being able to put her henin’s gauze from her eyes without foregoing a ride straight into the waters.

She knew today would be the worst, so she willed the retinue faster, the view transforming in mere moments with outer walls jutting up in place of spires. While waiting for admittance for the umpteenth time, she had made a habit of counting the arrowslits punctured into stone curtains. They remained in their hundreds and it was all she could do to fend off the cold and the ache that gnawed more with each visit. She knew her George’s hopefulness for a candle, however brightly it burned it always consumed itself in the end.

[SCENE 2]:

Hunched against the battlements outside the Bowyer, Richard Duke of Gloucester waited for his brother’s wife. His spine gave way, it cracked into awareness as he contemplated on what was Isabel. He found her increasingly taciturn with every _final_ time she beseeched him to intercede on her behalf for Clarence’s life. A piece of his sanity missed the earlier audiences where she would only mewl like a lost kitten and then prostrate herself at his feet.

The once Countess of Warwick raised no soft flirts, but between the two daughters, the maidenly charm was a possession borne to Anne alone since girlhood. Yester wooing, he was pleased to note none of the coquette had washed away with Lancaster’s death, even while she spat and swore at him over old Henry’s corpse. He had fixed her from when they were children as one easily wooed in any humour, whereas any show of Isabel’s pourings were as stilted and awkward as an un-oiled windmill. Wondering if she too, like him, preferred to rehearse, he relocked his fingers on the block and leaning over the parapet, he saw how even and arched were the marks she left in the snow, like the arrowslits he, stood above, was reminded of in their thousands.

‘You would meet me here on those frosty battlements, but why my Lord?’ So swift and quiet was her advance, as if calculated to trap him into looking her in the eyes while he had only lifted his head thinking to track her voice. Her look, a watery green, made paler when she pulled her hood over her ears. The dark felt bunched at her shoulders like his own hair when not tangled, and they had never looked so alike. ‘Have a care for the well-being of a mother as swiftly delivered from the coverlet of confinement as she is soon to pass into the shrouds of grief’ should he chance a guess on whether it was his brother or his little godson Richard of Clarence that she meant to mourn? He chose not to entertain her provocations. In truth they could both perish for all he cared and she and her other two brats with them - the better to keep Clarence company in the heaven upon whose soft cloudy bed he would never know rest. Perhaps he would afford her this one honesty.

As for the other mummeries - never having to see George’s insipid smile again made revelling in this nearly worth it. ‘As a wolf does prowl over the flocks, the hour draws close to us. And so, sweet sister, I hope to bring you as near as might to my brother’s cell for what I fear would be our last audience. Perchance, you may lay your eyes once more on the angelic countenance, drink clarity from the eyes of one at peace with what happier fate awaits those whose tyrants’ wills have martyred’ Richard pressed his hump deeper into the space behind them between the ramparts and made out a wince ‘Alas, fair sister. I can bare bring myself past the threshold without ache for my brother scourging into my soul and body. I am stood unable to move! Mayhaps you are stronger’ he whispered still in his square stare.

Her eyes widened at how he continued to press his whole back to the ice, scraping the walls in a manner that made her look at him as though his cape would tear if he continued.

Her gloved hand held out to him ‘Come now my lord, we shall brave the tower together’ she said emotionlessly. Yes, the image of penance he made on her satisfied him, in truth he found the cold soothed his back, nothing more.

In the presence chamber below he stayed his tongue, making full measure of Isabel’s anguish as she stood still, not moving a rush if it meant hearing any sound from upstairs. Even her breathing stopped fogging, until; ‘Poor Clarence, his youth cheated, drowned in silence’. It was as though she willed the chamber ceiling turn messenger. Still, stones stayed stones and five centuries made them no more suppliant to her than they were to greater men’s pleas. They immured in their stony claps and they like him offer nothing. This scene had his humours rattling, why! An intercessor for an intercessor? he mused, outwardly mouthing an ave. He had commanded his men to be silent when doing _it_. Should Isabel’s impatiened mutterings suffice as curtails to Clarence’s sputters, he would turn her into something most utile; a witness to his innocence when he would eventually lead her up to see how he shall flood the cell with crocodile tears. As soon as the winter sun descended past the window, her whispers gave way into whimpers ‘Hark! you shadows as you dwell about us now as you did clothed as the mists of Barnet, listen to a widow’s plea. Brother Gloucester, is there no more you can do for me? Or is it that I have no more to give to you as you no newer words for the king? Would he still not speak to me?’

Some days after he had bemoaned his child heart, she had come with her fauntkins, the sickly Richard in swaddling with Margaret and Edward trailing behind her in clothes ill-fitted but too clean and green to be ripped of the servants’ backs (as she so claimed). So desperate a picture, one that so easily betrayed what little she, indeed, had to give. ‘Madame, Lord Hastings lies just yonder at the Tower green, what have you to say to that?’

‘I say that the king has run mad!’

He quietened her with a raised hand ‘Do not let the meaner men leering outside the chamber door hear you speak of treason to the king. Men of the court lament how marriage makes of some women parrots, so would you thus give proof of your husband’s treachery? Know you not how they may seize upon your words and make of them the flush of truth? As to the Queen’ he leaned closer, enough for bits of his damp raven hair to brush her nose. ‘The siren knows better and ruled by women as are we, it would have done you greater credit were you not the daughter of her father and brother’s murderer’

‘Must you now remind me of the direness of the pass I find myself in? If this is the only pity you have to show me, lead me up the stairs so I may bid farewell to my sweet lord’ she pulled away whispering

He could see her shoulders hunch, just as they did throughout their shared memories at Middleham when she was like to cry, but never had to other’s knowledge. Here, there was no featherbed or girlhood chamber into which she could run, perchance with this lingering he could now see them fall for sure, know for certes how the icy shield plasters away ‘No sister, would I torture you so? There be one more thing I can do, what lies in my power will rid Clarence of death’ at that she bound back and ever closer. Touchingly, he lifted her face up, more looking for tears

She buried her face in her dark sleeves, coming up with glassy eyes. To his chagrin, hope had fenced her tears too soon ‘Tell me then, sweet brother I beseech you’

Oh but how he had forgotten, there was but one power still in the wretched woman’s keeping, one she could yield. It was not too late to gesture a postponement of Clarence’s journey, he knew that some coupled hours with her living husband would buy Isabel’s satisfaction, and lo-, by the morn the guardianship would transfer. He excused himself to the garderobe but instead he made his way to the men posted outside Clarence’s door, gesturing to that effect. Once returned - ‘First promise me this, you will release the Lady Anne from your guardianship, I mean to make of her a wife’

Isabel blanched, ‘I will not bespoil her desire to become a bride of Christ. She mourns still for her Lancaster Prince’

‘Littler concern is that to me as your knowledge is use to you. She already vouchsafed to wear my ring’ He stars down at her as he stretched himself like the very shadows Isabel called upon to condemn him.

Then she appeared to have no more tears to weep, but a shuffle was heard from above and when her eyes slid up, he saw the skin underneath was red-rimmed. The fist she balled too followed up. ‘Duress’ she accused

When she looked away shuddering, he rolled his eyes. Duress is you madame, he thought, only too happy to seize the Dowager Princess’ fortune between folds of cloth of gold, while you and Clarence push her into a nun’s scratchy habit. He would hurl those words at her, had he not already come so far, so close ‘You would retract those words if I were to save your husband. See here a loving friend, where you refuse to perceive but a villain’ He turned towards her, leaning a little, and unknowingly, he accentuated his own deformity. Upon realisation he retreated further, pressing into his seat where the dark began to encroach.

Isabel’s eyes began to flare, wildfire over the patches of blue and murrey light from the lattices ‘I had judged your desire to have Clarence spared, free of charge. Now you barter over my heart’s life like the miserliest of bankers. Very well then Gloucester, I tell you I will think nothing of it until you tell me what you intend to do for my husband’s life’ Her fist clenched at her side, gloves stretched taught by rage.

The sun had become overawed by the guttering candles casting their own shadows, he knew that he - like the few hours left, was waning before her eyes, but for the hand resting on the chair’s arm, the jewels from his rings glinting menacingly with every thrum of the finger. She kept her own steady by gathering rushes in her lap, weaving them as intently as she insisted on remaining on the stonefloor. She would not leave, she would no longer draw near. He was never happier for his ugly countenance and how Isabel had not beckoned him from the shade. If men longed to look upon him for the truth, as they did with Clarence and Edward when what came out of them did not sound like reason, harder would it be to hide his craft. ‘I have in possession two letters for the king. One from the mother who bore us, the other from the sister in Burgundy who loves Clarence best. If Edward knew how they plead for his life, he would reprieve for certes’

As Isabel’s mouth slackened, he swore for a moment that he had made her dumbstruck, until he saw her eyes narrow in a warmer light, her sharpened words pointing at him ‘They are in your possession, wherefore?’

Unexpected. Withall he remained calm. ‘Wherefore what? You know how my brother the king entrusts me with his matters, ever when succumbed to the deathbed by his wantoness and debauched drunk-‘

‘Aye. Why then had they not reached his knowledge? He ails and were he to die and Woodville in charge-‘ she tried to stand up, and then again against the wall, mouth agape and hand upon her chest as if breathing became a cumbersome task. ‘You held the key to my heart’s dreary room in your palm, and for all this time. Dangling it by my eyes on a chain just as golden as the harps of the angels that give salvation. Fool I! to not have seen how it would only come down to me had you something to ask of me’ he crept quietly enough to grab her by the wrist before she wrenched free seething ‘Fiend!’ Oh most wretched fiend! As raised by my father, companion of my childhood and blood of my lord, thrice over were you brother to me. How I had trounced in the traps your hatred and greed had set. Too fiendish for hell are you, I fear for it for it shall freeze over when you be pushed through its ground’

In the light, he feared his features would illuminate with fear, if she could read, he would lose as she had no pity to spare. Too quickly he lost sight of her face, and her raven skirts rushed further from his corner and he called out to her to not broach the king, if not for protocol then care for the peace of an ailing man. At the door, the Duchess of Clarence paid no heed, and in her arrogance he found no will to move from the shadows to which he returned. He knew his brother’s trust to be his wealth alone.

Like two chips of dirty ice, Richard’s uneven grey eyes fell to the floor, contemplating on how tempering the Lady Anne will be. For as long as he would keep her he would be father as more than husband, the pick to scourge from her mind the fancies beholden by a Warwick. An England ruled by the Barons – a refrain for the only melody that fell as seductively upon the ears of a Woodville as it did those of a Clarence. From his clothes, Richard brushed off the dust that the popinjays of the court claimed their drabness attracted.

Long had he pondered the demise of men like George, half-hearted in their approach to the common weal and falsest to themselves. He decided on leaving the chamber, and with each pace he drew into the hall outside, he grew surer of what he knew of Kingship. It was a burden only to be borne by creatures whose hearts were not suited to love, love this word which held all the folly of man but touched none of the divine.

But then came the rude pound and up above a womanly voice droned among the men’s, it was as sickening in its worry, as if it dripped through the ceiling like perishing honey. Another and louder: ‘Ah my lords, lord Hastings pray you stop jangling the key in this wise or my head will begin to ring once more’, this one bellowed like only Edward’s voice could, deep as it was rich. Richard held onto his hat all the way to the top of the spiral stairs, not knowing the beating in his temples for the meander.

There were many more there, stooping below the ledge hosed legs above him parted and he saw Clarence sat in rushes that looked more straws, his hazel eyes rounded and dark-rimmed. His pout, too, gaped and full of bewilderments. Hastings inclined his head, the falcon’s feather shielding his expression as he whispered to Dorset words in Richard’s plain sight ‘See my man, it is my Lord of Gloucester’s doing’. Richard scurried back and out of the Bowyer Tower, steps hushed by the men’s’ bickering and Isabel’s sobs.

[SCENE 3]:

One clink, and Malmsey gushed over his hose and then outlined the flagstones in red. To a man as starved off peace as George of Clarence, it seemed that then the ground had come to life, blood-flowing in its veins from under him, but little did the lady Belle mind when it tinged her skirts. ‘Jet wool, and to think I wore it to mark death! A versatile colour, see how it hides the wine’ she smiled

His wife knelt by him and at that the king and his possie narrowed from sight, ‘Staffordshire wool’ she then sighed softly and with that took him back to fields of blazing ramsons. Rivers and moats speckled with lilies and cattails bobbing in the wind stretched before his eyes, above them all glimmering and black was Tutbury Castle, crowned in his heart more lovingly than the daisies did growing beneath its proud foundations. Tears fell hot as he looked to the pitched window and he could feel Isabel shuddering, her head weeping in his lap. It was one thing she had never done, yet in her clutching he found greater relief than he had ever in these years past, when the French winds tumbled around and them about them and it was his head that hung in defeat as the crown seemed a foregone conclusion.

She sat up letting him kiss her no differently than if this were farewell. When she wiped her face, letting the dagged fabric drink the tears, in her flushed face, he was reminded of her beauty.

Beneath the tapered light he confessed to nightmares - they were those of a soul in retaliation against the conscious, who when awake was blind to guilt. He taled of wedges of gold and emeralds; in shapes and places of eyes, a lifetime of material scrapping under his feet but not in his pockets, chaining him to the ocean bed.

He had not seen their daughter Anne among the chattel of men and coins and Isabel crossed herself whispering ‘She be in the heavens with father, she in his tow as they wait for the babe Richard. A pair in heaven for the son and daughter on earth’

Isabel thought to slip from his lap then, but instead of taking to the floors pacing and questioning in rage, he only folded his legs to his chest, not caring for the spilled Malmsey as the drops spread dribbling from his knees, striping his hose motley. ‘So you are garbed to mark death’. The face settled in gloom. She nodded solemnly, wringing some of the liquid from her furs, it pooled at her feet, where the kirtle shone green.

George did not know the boy, snatched were they all from each other while Isabel had not yet finished her confinement. The image of Richard of Clarence, warmed him as much as a fleeting candle as had his brother of Gloucester’s presence - beaming godfather one week, a face swimming behind the door the next. Day by day the expression grew cooler and less committal in its vows of salvation, and sometimes and somewhere in the darker hours, George could almost make out a relish.

‘A pair in heaven for the son and daughter on earth indeed’ At least Isabel is alive, he thought as he leaned over the rushes, searching to fill two goblets. The tap on the barrel was crown-shaped and when he turned, he wondered if something was amiss - for the butt was brought in only hours ago and it did not sputter as one fresh and full. The swill was stale, and perhaps it was right that it should spill.

‘Sire, I do hope what I had just learned will not vex you much. I would tell you that your being caged up these past few days was no mistake of your brother’, when she uttered ‘Lying Spider’ he knew her referring to Gloucester. ‘A sea of wine may swill in Edward but it would still not match the venom layed in Gloucester’s webs’ to that she raised her goblet once again, but to herself and to the great Warwick’s mettle that had passed to her and god willing onto their children – what no attainder could remove. It appeared that as soon as Edward had notice of the pleas, he had learned.

‘“Brother” my sweet? Only one mistaken?’ he turned to her, stabled by the liquor dwelling in him. What was left for the ground now no longer moved. ‘You surely do mean to tell me that it was only Gloucester that had false foresight on my imprisonment and death?’

Her eyes widened, flushed with hurt ‘You knew what would become of you? Dreadful nights slept without rest, now I see for what ache my heart bore. Still, tell me you did not give up hope’

Without wanting, a small smile formed ‘No I did not doubt your constancy, not you who had once reconciled me to Edward behind the great Warwick’s back. I had not given up hope for then and I will not for now. I now place trust in Edward’s foolishness. You tell me of Richard’s miscalculations, but I tell you of how Edward’s were the graver, and twofold as well’ as he propped himself upon the barrel he knew his grin was turning wayward

Isabel’s discomfort confused his humours. Has this past moon changed her? Had she forgotten how in him the macabre springs into life, come triumph or tribulation? Surely she did not expect to find a man completely broken in, a tamed falcon of any badge but York. From his seat he placed a hand on her head, laughing hoarsely, and then, silence. ‘They were all wrong, for I did indeed seek G in the necromancer’s smoke. Edward did wrong to commit me here but now did the worser acquitting me. Richard thought to overawe me and Edward’s brotherly love, but where G is concerned, I am now surest how it does not attach to a title but to a name. And that name be mine of George, heir of the late Henry of Lancaster and Edward of York’

His voice was creeping louder, and Isabel hushed him as if to ward it from the walls, she moved his hand in hers as she rose to his shoulder ‘Burdett and Stacey, dead though’

‘I heard their shrieks, the water boiled from me my fear as it tendered the meat from their bones’ his hazel eyes wondered with the moonbeams, whose billows through the glass, coloured like a false dawn.

Through this glimpse of new light, Fatigue had been bathed off Isabel’s features ‘Long live the spirit of St George, long live the king George my husband’ she whispered, smiling as though captured in a moment of hope at mass.

Oh but how months of wrecked nerves had narrowed his frame. He noticed it more everytime he would sit atop the newer barrels to find there was more wood around his hips. On this to be the final night he drew Isabel up with him. Over the roads and shops, their son Richard was drawing his last breath, vapour fading onto L’Érber’s cold panes. ‘While I was in my confinement, you did not engage in any of those alchemies and trickeries yourself, I hope. The mystic can be like a usurer’s game, demanding too great a debt for what is given’ Isabel sighed in his shoulder

‘On my word, no. I am but a Christian man, nor did I believe, but had I known it was Gloucester that slithered the charges into Edward’s ear I would had gladly bartered my soul for even the most forgiving of the fatal maladies to fall upon him, and this our house’

‘For shame husband, for one can not love without a soul, it would make a poor King for England and a poorer husband for Isabel’ a surprisingly brusque nudge came with the last one. He did not explain himself further, surely she did not need to be shown it was the same heart now beating into her ear as it was all those years ago. True, Steadfast, Slandered to himself and her. False, Fleeting, Perjur’d to those others.

Her low voice appeared again, it only soothed with the silence as opposed to breaking it ‘Edward did not believe me, dear heart, when I told him of Gloucester’s treachery. He had questioned the lackeys and all refused to give names. Too near his time he was and tiresome work it is putting men to the rack (that was your brother-in-law of Exeter’s play), so he left back to his bed and made of my truth a jealous fancy borne of girlhood envy. And wherefore? My sister’s favour in his attention? I laugh. Too gracious was I that Gloucester thought me the contemptuous child of Middleham and cast me to peace’

For all the nerves wound like Nuremberg steel behind that dainty face, Isabel’s tongue had never acquired the sweetness that coated that of a true demagogue. He would talk to Edward. ‘The attainder, pray tell me it is lifted?’

‘I fear I do not know’

‘Then we must go to Edward at once! For if he were to die tonight, our lands would be at the mercy of Gloucester or the Woodvilles’ he grabbed her hand ‘come, do not tarry and pray his relief at my release did not too well prolong his life’ from where the door lay ajar, it was the only light spilling into the Bowyer halls, but this tempted neither to look anywhere but forwards, indifferent to how dark the dawn.

**Author's Note:**

> I don’t know who possessed me to write in omniscient but here we are 0_0.
> 
> Compliments and criticism accepted with equal gratitude! Don’t be afraid to share any thoughts you have and if you liked this feel free to check out the next two parts in the series xx


End file.
